Murder With My Husband - 88. Vickie Barton - The Springboro Nurse

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the murder of Vickie Barton. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: Forensic Files S11 Ep23 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scared-to-death/ https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/warren-county/springboro-community/ex-springboro-officer-pleads-guilty-to-murder-for-hire https://www.cleveland19.com/story/33286227/thomas-jim-barton-guilty-plea/ https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/09/29/former-cop-cleared-wifes-death/91273596/ Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband  Ads: Seed: www.seed.com/HUSBAND and use code HUSBAND HydroJug: www.thehydrojug.com and use code: HUSBAND LightStream: www.lightstream.com/HUSBAND Cozy Earth: www.cozyearth.com use code HUSBAND40 Betterhelp: www.betterhelp.com/husband Olive and June: www.oliveandjune.com/husband use code HUSBAND True Bill: www.truebill.com/husband Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody welcome back to our podcast. This is murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Marlens. And I'm Garrett Marlens. And he's the husband. I'm husband. What did you guys think? We were really going to leave you alone on Thanksgiving with no episode. We'd never do that. We'd never do that. Every other podcast does that. We would never do that. Okay, Garrett, do you have your 10 seconds? I actually don't really have a 10 seconds because we are recording this a week earlier than normal. you're recording this a week earlier than normal. So we haven't had our week yet. But this coming Thursday, Thanksgiving is Payton's birthday. Yeah, so it will have already passed,

but I can foresee that it will be amazing. So. Payton is turning 47 years old. 47, can you guys believe that? She's had a lot of work done so she looks good. No, I'm going to be 25 on the 25th so it's going to be my golden birthday. Oh it is your golden birthday. Yeah. Wow. And Garrett told me he got me something but it's a surprise and he won't tell me what it is. And when we get it we're not going to say I

said it's going to be a puppy. It's not going to be a puppy. But you guys will know. We'll show everybody. Oh we will. Maybe. You and me both surprised probably. All right, let's get into the story. All right. So our case sources are CBS news.com WCPO.com, forensic files episode Cleveland 19.com and Cincinnati.com. Our case this week begins in the small town of spring burrow Ohio. Jim and Vicki Barton are a local couple who are very liked and respected well around town. In order to get into this case,

we need to go back and describe exactly who Vicki and Jim were. Vicki grew up in Middletown, Ohio, and had one passion, horses. Vicki's mother Mary Jane Seabirt remembers the young life of her daughter, well, she describesorses. Vicki's mother Mary Jane Seabirt remembers the young life of her daughter well. She describes a vibrant young Vicki who would go out to the stables every single day to ride the horses. But it wasn't long before Mary Jane discovered that Vicki wasn't only heading out to the

barn for her love of horses, but also for her love of another young local teen, Jim Barton. All right. Jim two loved horses and the outdoors, and when the two of them began riding horses together, they also discovered their love for each other. And after five years of dating, Jim and Vicki were married in the year 1980. Together, the newlyweds made their way to the small town of Springboro, where almost immediately Jim became a police officer.

He worked hard at it, eventually working his way up to Lieutenant in the local departments. He had a great work ethic and took his job very seriously, which made him a great candidate to eventually become Chief of Police one day. Which really was where he was headed. His thorough work and professional demeanor led his co-workers to look up to him as a mentor and a friend. Vicki was also successful in her own endeavors, eventually working as a nurse supervisor at the local hospital.

Vicki too loved her work and was very compassionate for those she cared for, which made her respected and loved at the hospital. Both Jim and Vicki obviously become pillars of their community serving those around them, him a police officer and her a nurse. It's pretty easy to see why everyone not only knew them, but loved them. And really, Vicki loved her life. According to her friends, Darleen and Kathy, Vicki loved being a cop's wife. She loved that he was not only her protector, but their community's protector as well.

And Jim didn't let their careers stop them from their goal, which they had had since meeting. And that was to own a farm. So in 1988 together, Jim and Vicki excitedly purchased their own horse farm just outside of Springboro. Did he want to work on the farm or just have it for horses?

Just have it for horses for like the thing. Maybe some cattle. Yeah, the thing they can do in their spare time. So they decided to call their farm low-cost knoll. And although they knew it was a huge journey and project that they had just embarked on, this was their dream. Like they were excited. So over the next seven years, Jim and Vicki built a brand new home on the farm added a barn and did everything else They needed to make a functioning farm. You know what type of horses they liked I don't know they didn't like I mean

They didn't clarify and I even looked up like the Facebook page for the case and there wasn't anything clarifying there right and Life was really going well for the couple it seemed like they had really conquered all of their dreams. We're living a very good life together. But on April 11th, 1995, everything would change. Tragedy would strike the Barton family, their new farm, and dream life. It was a bright spring day when Jim woke up and got ready for work. He told Vicki that he loved her and kissed her goodbye heading to the police station.

After a shorter shift, Jim finished up at his work and left the police station to head home for the day. But it was as he was pulling up to the farm that he noticed something strange. The garage and interior doors were open. And this was weird, like this wasn't something they normally did. He cautiously gets out of his vehicle and heads inside, expecting to find Vicki and ask her about why she had left the doors open. But when he finally does get inside the house and notices that

everything is in disarray and makes his way to the bedroom, it wasn't what he was expecting at all. There's a bird in my wife and he'll be killed, I think. Where she is? She's in my basement. It's in my apartment. There was a pillow over her head. And she's not breathing. And she's got her clothes off.

I don't know what's going on. Give me some help. You can just venture in here. Oh, OK. So Vicki, his wife, was shot to death on their bedroom floor. Oh, and he thought, but he said a pillow was over her head. There was a pillow laying over her head, but she had also been shot. So at that time, he didn't know that she'd been shot yet.

I think he knew something was obviously wrong, but all he saw was a pillow over her head. Okay. Jim remained hopeful that EMTs could say Vicki, but looking at her and assessing the scene a little bit longer, it seemed like a lost cause. So obviously Captain George Hunter rushes out to the scene. This is Jim Barton, his friend and coworker, like this is a local police officer. It's all hands on deck. And while police are on their way, Jim surveyed his way around the rest of the house, gun drawn. He was obviously worried that whoever had done this could still be in the house.

But he cleared the house, the killer or killers who had murdered his wife were gone. When Captain Hunter arrived with the rest of investigators and paramedics, they were all puzzled by the scene. It seemed like Vicky had been shot execution style with three gunshots to her head. What the heck? The paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. Two shots were behind her ear

and one shot was to the side of her head. All right, so it was a small town. Mm-hmm. And on top of that, we're in the middle of, I mean, guess not nowhere, but they have a farm, so they have some land. On the outskirts of town, yes. And she was shot execution style.

In the middle of the day. What the heck, that doesn't make sense. Yeah. So there was no murder weapon found at the scene, but they did determine that it was probably a 22 caliber that was used. And there were no fibers or fingerprints that they could collect. Like, literally, they dusted the walls,

they dusted all of the bedroom, and there were no fingerprints. So whoever had done this had cleaned up. And this was the 90s. And so the bartons did not have security cameras, so I'm sorry, Garrett, that's not gonna be in this case. The barton house appeared to have been burglarized with some valuable items missing, but Jim's guns and Vicki's jewelry were left behind,

which I don't think is strange that someone wouldn't take jewelry because like how many people do you know that have that valuable of jewelry, you know what I'm saying? But was anything valuable taken? They said some things were, but they did think it was weird that his gun collection, which was pretty big.

I think that was like it. So they said it looks like it had been rifled through like the guns were moved, but no guns were missing. Which they're like, those are valuable. Like you can sell those. I'm already getting suspicious. And the only physical evidence left at the crime scene was on Vicki's body itself. Okay.

Vicki had been sexually assaulted. Her shirt and bra had been pushed up over her breasts. And on both of her breasts, police discovered bite marks, like one and one. What? Yeah. So police eager to collect the DNA off the bite mark, actually find that the saliva left from the bite

was enough for a DNA profile. But when they compared it to everyone, they could think of there was no match. Especially in 1995, the DNA, I'm sure they had was nothing compared to now. Yeah, and they did, like they did test it against what they had, which was a database of known criminal offenders in the area.

And her husband Jim and their friends, and it didn't match anyone. And so as police, you know, friends and co-workers of Jim are investigating the murder, they sit down with him to try to figure out if anyone would have wanted to hurt his wife, Vicki, or if she had anything going on in her personal life that they should look into. This is obviously like devastation for not only Jim, but for all of the local police. One of their own had been murdered, and they would do what they could to find justice. Jim told them that Vicki was the most likable person.

No one he knows would have wanted to hurt her. And all of her friends said the same thing, but then Jim tells them he might have something that they could look into. Earlier that day, before Vicki had been murdered, while Jim was at work, Vicki had actually murdered, while Jim was at work, Vicki had actually called him and told him about a stranded motorist who had come by their farm with a gasoline

can looking for fuel. Jim, a cop, was obviously alarmed by the situation, and like, asked, okay, well, what did you do? And Vicki told Jim that, you know, he seemed like a nice young man who just needed some gas, so she got it for him. Jim told her, okay, that was stupid. He could have hurt you, you know, you're lucky he didn't. But now, thinking back, how do he actually come back and hurt her? Was the gas just a ruse to get close to the victim and kind of fill out the situation?

Police obviously don't know, but this was definitely strange and seemed like something they needed to follow up on immediately. I mean, if the situation was weird enough that Vicki had thought to call Jim at work and tell him about it, it was obviously odd enough that police now kind of had a bad feeling about it and were like, hey, we need to follow up on this. When news broke that Vicki Barton had been murdered, it really rocked the small town. Remember that the Bartons were well known and loved, and to make matters worse, she was murdered in the middle of the day inside of her own home, and her husband

was a cop. Everyone is beginning to fill on edge like she should have been the safest in town. Yeah, I'm confused. I don't have, I don't know, I don't have anything right now. So like going back to what we talked about in our last episode, which was something you talked about, most people do not think that something like this could ever happen to them. Yeah. So when it does happen to their neighbor

who lives in the same area as them, is comparable to them, it can really shake somebody. They can be like, well, if it happened to her now, I feel like it could happen to me. You know, especially in like a smaller town, and I don't know, it's just. It's heavy. And this is different, like the chances of it happening

are so much lower. I mean, as soon as you start shrinking down the amount of people in an area, the chances of it happening just get way lower. And I mean, kind of like you're saying, like all of these people are thinking, we moved out here to the country, like atmosphere to get away from the house on bus. Yeah, to be safe, but here we are bad things happening right now.

As the town is stirring, police are back at the station working on the case. Still unable to track down the possible motorist whom they really wanted to talk to. So they began working other theories while trying to track him down. The most obvious to them now that Jim had been excluded because of the DNA on the body was that maybe someone dangerous that Jim had arrested had come back for revenge. Had any of these criminals just been released from prison, they begin to check. Police combed through Jim's case files in hopes of someone sticking out, but the search came out useless.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know, for some reason I just feel like that's unlikely. Yeah, police had no leads. Yeah. So days turned into weeks as Jim, family, and the community grieved the loss of Vicky. And the grief is only heightened when they remember that time was passing and justice wasn't any closer.

No new information was coming up. No leads, no suspects. And eventually one year trickled by with nothing. No one knew who had killed Vicki Barton. A police officer's wife had been murdered in her own home and police had nothing to show for it despite working every lead or theory they could think of. Jim Barton had continued with his life over the last year. And Mary Ann, one of Vicki's really good friends, had actually

reached out to Jim after the murder. She told him that if he needed a friend or a shoulder to cry on, she was there. And Jim took her up on that offer. 15 months after the murder of Vicki, her good friend Mary Ann and her husband Jim were married. Okay. She swiped in. Swip her nose, swip her. I'm trying not to be suspicious yet. I'm just, you know, it happens.

I guess is what it is. But within months of marriage, Mary Ann noticed some strange behavior from her new husband. He would spend hours alone in the basement, distancing himself from her. And Marianne realized that although they were in love and married, Jim's wife had still been murdered, and maybe it had affected him more than she realized. So only 17 months after the marriage, Jim and Marianne got divorced. All right, never mind, there goes my theory. Vicki's murder was looming over the city of springboro.

It's haunting shadows could be felt everywhere. And more time went by as everyone desperate for answers and justice also began looking for healing. Then four years after the murder, police received their first big break in the case. Four years, like, how does it take so long? Four years that is so long does it take so long? Four years that is so long. It's so long. It's just so crazy that that can happen that much later. It just, and it does happen a lot. Often. Yeah. So this guy named Gary, Gary, not me, not you. This guy named Gary Henson was arrested on a drug charge and during his interrogation, he confessed that he knew

something about the cop's wife who had been murdered years earlier. Police are like WTF, but they obviously remain quiet in life and finish like this came out of nowhere, and Gary tells them that his brother had been involved in the murder of Vicki Barton. He continues on that his half-brother, William Phelps, had told him about that day. William and his accomplice had gone to the farm with intentions of robbing the place. When Vicki answered the door, William told his brother that his accomplice, who was high on drugs, actually took her into the bedroom and sexually assaulted her and then shot her. Why would he just say all this? Yeah, a little weird.

Yeah. I'm wondering if like what maybe he said I have information. Like we'll give you a deal or something. Yeah. I mean, they obviously didn't include that, but I'm guessing maybe he was like, Hey, if I have information, can I get a letter charge? So police once again are like WTF, but they run a background check on Gary's brother, William Phelps, to see if this story held up. Because you have to think at this point, they've been investigating, they have nothing.

And no leads. And then all of a sudden this guy comes in and is like, here I have your answer. So they're kind of like, okay, well, what are the chances that someone just came in and solved this case for us? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads? Unsure of which direction to take in life? We all face those moments of uncertainty where the right path seems elusive. But guess what? There's a solution that can help you find clarity and confidence. And that's therapy. As you guys know, I talk about therapy all the time. I go to therapy weekly. I definitely am a big supporter of it. It's helped me manage my stress and anxiety, and really helped me work through difficult times.

Therapy is not just for major traumas, it's for anyone who wants to learn positive coping skills, set healthy boundaries, and become the best version of themselves. It's about staying connected to what truly matters, as you navigate life's challenges. Here's how it works, simply fill out a brief questionnaire and better help will match you with a licensed therapist who meets your specific needs. And if you ever feel they need to switch therapist, you can do so at no additional charge. But therapy be your map to a better life. Visit betterhelp.com slash husband today and get 10% off your first month.

That's better help, help.com slash husband. Jumping into an ad and it is native. I use their body wash. I use their shampoo. We use their sunscreen, everything. They're deodorant. We are big native fans over here. And the funny thing is is I caught myself wanting to buy native products at stores. And then I was like, why am I doing that? Murder with my husband literally has a code. You can use promo code husband and get money off your native purchases.

So go do it. Native sunscreen offers a quickly absorbing ultra-shear and lightweight formula that hydrates your skin while providing broad spectrum SPF 30 protection from harmful UVA and UVB rays. And Native sunscreen offers three delightful scents, coconut and pineapple, rosé and sweet peachy nectar. They're also for your face and body. I use them every day. But if you prefer unscented, they've got you covered too. Give your skin the protection it deserves with

natives and mineral sunscreens. Go to nativedo.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout to get 20% off your first order. That's native de.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout native do.com slash husband and use promo code husband. So they run the background check and it does hold up and they discovered that William was in fact not at work four years earlier on the day that Vicki was murdered so he doesn't have an alibi. There was only one issue with Gary Story, and it was an issue that made it hard to prosecute. William Phelps had actually taken his own life just three months after Vicki Barton's murder. So he's not around to interview or prosecute anymore if this is true, right?

Friends say that during those three months after the murder, he had been acting paranoid and was actually sleeping with a gun under his pillow and that he actually like put traps outside of his window. So if someone came up, it would like make noise and alert him. So friends are like, Williams' whole persona had changed in the time after the murder until the suicide. And William was the one who did it or his friend did it. So William was the one who did it. Gary is his brother, but Gary said that William told him he also had an accomplice. So we do have a missing.

And William was saying his friend was the one who killed her. Yes, that his friend was high on drugs. At least that's what he told Gary. Okay, I'm just trying to connect some dots if he was scared because maybe he thought his friend was gonna come, you know, just. Yeah, exactly. Well, there's many possibilities, right?

His friends are like, well, he was a different person and it really just seemed like he couldn't take whatever was on his mind anymore. And the other issue is, William had never revealed to anybody or to Gary who the supposed accomplice was. And despite these missing pieces, police decided to go ahead and exume William Phelps' body to obtain DNA to compare to the saliva from Vicki's bite mark.

Could they close this case without putting anyone in prison for the crime? I think that's like the question that's running through their heads. Either way, it was no use. William Phelps' DNA did not match the DNA collected from the crime scene. And neither did Garry's whom they ran just in case he was like maybe the accomplice

or something that was trying to just pin it on his brother. Also, according to records, Garry was actually in prison at the time of the murder, so it was very unlikely that he was the accomplice, but we've seen that prison doesn't always stop people from being the murderer. So despite the major clues, police felt like this route was just another dead end because they couldn't close this case with a secondhand confession and no DNA. Gary actually knew that Vicki had

been bitten and that William had pretended to need gas earlier that day, which none of that was released to the public. So they really do believe Gary. Wow. But they need more. Even if they did have the right person, they need more proof and they need the accomplice because there's no one to put in jail. And once again, years go by turning 50s into a cold case. They think they have the person, but they don't have the evidence. As most people moved on or at least tried to, the tragedy still stuck around.

It was attached to the police department like a leech. All of them would remember that murder of a fellow police officer's wife that remains unsolved. With this looming over them, exactly eight years after the murder, the cold case unit decides to reopen the devastating case, to get some fresh eyes, a new outlook on the case. As they begin going over the case files, combing through everything that had happened this far, they're kind of hashing out the notes from interviews and the notes from the day at the crime scene. And it was while reading those that one officer noticed something strange, something that

no one had seemed to pick up on before. Captain George Hunter had reported, this is all in writing, that at the crime scene, just minutes after finding his wife dead, Jim Barton had turned to his friend and said, they killed her man. Those murdering bastards, they killed her. They as in he like knew who they were. Wow, you caught onto that. You caught onto that. So at the time, he just sounded like a grieving husband to his like friends who are probably a little on edge of everything going on. But these new eyes looking back at this nose. Why would he have said anything?

Right. I'm sure you're gonna get to it. I'm just, what the heck? So you basically did for me, but Jim had used the word they instead of someone or he or she. And he had used a plural pronoun to describe the assailant. Now at this time, why or how would have Jim known

that there were possibly two killers? A stretch, maybe. But these new officers decide to move forward looking at the case closer to Jim than anyone had before. They had just immediately excluded him because number one, he was a police officer that was friends with everyone. And number two, the DNA didn't match. They were like, okay, no, we don't have to look at him anymore.

So the cold case unit moves on to the 911 call made by Jim that afternoon. The one I showed you a piece of earlier. With all the information gathered so far, they re-listen to the tape and one moment on the tape, one comment made by Jim on the recording, haunts them. I got a what, what did he say? Did Jim just say during the 911 call that he had to call for help or that he had to call felps as in William. Yeah, I can't even understand it. The closest thing to a suspect that they had in this case.

I got a call for help man. Four years earlier, William felps brother had pointed the finger at him. Basically, as close to a probable story as police had heard at this point, yep. Concluding that William felps really probably had been involved in Vicki Barton's murder. And now Jim Barton, her husband, had possibly just named Phelps in his 911 call. That's insane. He made after finding her body. So when detectives discovered this, they knew that they had a tread lightly. They knew that this wasn't concrete evidence.

But had they been looking at this all wrong? Had the DNA not matched Jim because he had hired someone else to do it instead? When they bring Jim in to ask him about it and what he had said on the phone, he claimed that he said he needed to call for help. He's like, no, no. What do you mean?

Go back and say, what do you mean when he said he needed to call for help. He's like, no, no. What do you mean? Go back and say, what do you mean when you said, with the DNA not match Jim because he hired someone else to do it? So originally they're thinking that whoever this DNA was on the bite mark was the murderer, right? So they're like, okay, well obviously Jim had nothing to do with it because it's not his DNA. But did the DNA not match him because instead of doing it himself,

he had hired someone else. So he still did have a part in the murder. Oh, got it. Okay, so okay. So you're saying maybe Jim set this whole thing up. I thought you were saying he used different DNA when he wouldn't got DNA tested. No, no, no, no.

Got it. I'm just saying that he would have had maybe hired someone else to do it so that the DNA wouldn't match him. And then it would be easy for him to be excluded. Okay. So Jim is like, no, no, no, I said for help.

I said, I need to call for help. But detectives are like, but you had called for help. You were literally on the phone with help. Like who else did you need to call for help in that moment besides 911? But either way, the audio recording wasn't clear enough. Police couldn't concretely prove that he had said, felps over for help like they believe. So they asked Dr. Robert Fox, a faculty member of Ohio State University and an expert on acoustic phonics to help determine exactly what Jim had said.

That's crazy. I never even thought about that. Right. So had he said Phelps or had he said for help and in order to eliminate any bias, Dr. Fox wasn't told which one police wanted the answer to be. Okay. Or what the like 911 call even pertain to, what they were looking for. Dr. Fox broke down the 911 call into waveforms and looked for vowels.

Okay, this part is just crazy. He looked for vowels which are considered soft sounds and a thing called fricatives which are hard sounds. And fricatives would be like the F sound as in fine or felt. The fricative would not be there if it was for help. The H would be there. And that's where he will determine the difference between the two. So he's literally going to read the audio like a book, looking at the waveforms to tell us what he said, which how freaking cool that's so cool. So he used a computer program to perform the analysis of individual letters in the recording. We're amazing.

Humans are amazing. Well, Dr. Fox is amazing. Not a lot of amazing. I'm not, I couldn't do that. But still like the fact that humans are so cool. So he isolated a number of different hard Fs that were through the phone call.

So whether it was Jim was saying fine or freaking out or whatever, he isolates it and reads it and, you know, there's a clear pattern of the phone call. So whether it was Jim was saying fine or freaking out or whatever, he isolates it and reads it and there's a clear pattern of the F's. Oh, and then he pointed out several H's as well and compared all of them. So he gets what Jim's voice sound when it says F and what Jim's voice sounds like when it says H. And here is the result between Jim's F's

and Jim's H sound during this call. Give me some help. Give me some help. Call for help. Call for help. I'm gonna call for help man. So he totally said felt- You can hear the difference between the 18 and-

He's totally, yep. So you can clearly hear the difference between the two of those and so could police. Okay you guys, we are getting into an ad. I know you guys have both heard the story about how Garrett and I were both paying separately for peacock, and then we used rocket money and realized how dumb we are and our so happy rocket money helped us stop doing that.

Rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. And like Payton said, I'm always on it checking things out, seeing what's going on, seeing how many Amazon packages paid in her body. Is that how you find out about my Amazon packages? No, I just get emails.

Oh my email. God. I'm going to count. Oh my gosh. Over 3 million people have already used rocket money saving the average person of the $720 a year. Imagine what you could do with that extra cash and your pocket. Stop throwing your money away, cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your expenses the

easy way. By going to rocketmoney.com slash husband. That's rocketmoney.com slash husband. RocketMoney.com slash husband. This summer, PXU Energy is back. This ultimate summer pass, starting 50% off energy charges all summer. Everybody's on for automatic energy savings. Plus free energy on the hottest day. Don't you see it? Free days are now the coolest days.

In this summer's hottest blood flow, sir. Guaranteed keeps you cool. The savings are coming from inside the house. Ultimate summer path, energy savings, and results so cool. Yes, you energy you energy for everything. Captain Banner now to learn more with this expert analysis. Police believe that Jim clearly said call felt or call felt. Yeah.

But unexpectedly, Dr Fox also told police that after breaking down the call, he determined that while on the phone, Jim Barton could be here walking around and moving things in the background of the audio. So he's like, hey, I don't know like if you guys need to hear this, but when I was breaking down the call, I noticed that while on the phone, Jim is pacing and moving and he's actually moving things in the background of the audio, I could hear it once I broke everything down. And police cat and help but wonder was he moving things around the crime scene. A crime scene that he is a trained evidence technician in. Even we know that you should not ever touch a single thing at a crime scene and a trained cop would definitely know that. So why can you hear him doing such a thing? Despite this evidence, Jim

Barton claimed his innocence. He's like, I don't care what you think you like heard. It's just not true. I had nothing to do with it. And he agrees to take a polygraph test in which he fails. So why? If, especially if he's a cop, he probably knows that polygraphs aren't a missive on court. Yes. Look at me using big words. Look at you. Like, like, I know what I'm doing. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Why would you do that? I don't know. I don't know the reason I also thought about that because I feel like Amy, especially

if he's guilty, he should know not to take it because if he fails it, they're gonna hold it against him. They're not gonna use it in court, but they're gonna hold it against him. Do you think they would have been able to figure all this out 10 years ago whenever it was with the technology they had, or do you think they had to be in this time period? Oh, I think it definitely had to be in this time period. I'm not sure exactly when this, you know,

they were able to break down sounds and recordings, but in order for it, like, he had to use a special program, you know what I mean. And we just know that everything advances so far. I do think that the possibility of it being Jim was overlooked originally just because of the situation. It was a cop, yeah. And then when news of Jim's possible involvement

in his own wife's murder hits the press, it was obviously a shock for everyone in town. Like no one had even thought of this as a possibility. But bigger than that shock, was the testimony of a local waitress who came forward after she heard that William Phelps might be linked to the crime with Jim Barton. She told police that before the murder, she was waitressing at a restaurant and Jim Barton and William Phelps came in together and sat down and ate. And this was news because Jim Barton had told police that he didn't know who William

Phelps was, so how could he have said his name on the 911 call? But this waitress believes that she had seen them together before, so that contradicts the story. And when police re-interviewed Gary Williams' brother, they just wanted to know if there was anything that they had missed. And this is when Gary tells them that his brother had explained to him that the murder was an accident, like he had originally said. And they're like, yeah, yeah, you said that the first time it was only supposed to be a burglary. And he's like, yeah, it was only supposed to, you know, they were only supposed to burglarize the house in order to scare the wife not murder her

And that made police wonder well, why would Jim Barton want to scare his wife? No sense. What was the purpose of that and then they pieced it together at least what they thought and answer It seemed so silly so small that it's almost hard to believe Jim Barton had been campaigning to be the next chief of police. Everyone knew this, it was a huge goal of his. He had been wanting this forever. The only problem, in order to run for chief of police, one would have to live in the spring borough city limits. Jim and Vicki's farm, the farm that they had worked for and dreamed of since the beginning

of their relationship was on the outskirts of town. It's rumored that Jim could not legally run for chief of police if his full-time residence was not in city limits. So police are like, had Jim hired William Phelps to burglarize his home, scaring his wife enough in order to convince her to abandon their dream farm and move closer to the city so that he could run for chief of police. No, that's insane. Like that. If that is why that sucks. Yeah, but that's the theory they've come up with. I don't feel. I don't know. I don't know how I feel. Right. Like why would you do that, dude? Yeah. So if this is true, then he came home that day and found her dead only to realize while on the phone with 911 that he needed to call Phelps because something had obviously gone

wrong. And it like his original plan wasn't what it was supposed to be had his ploy to rank up at work, killed his own wife. This really was the only logical theory that pieced together everything that had happened in this case so far for police. Ten years after his wife's murder, Jim Barton was arrested as an accomplice to his wife's murder. An investigators believe that William Phelps knocked on Vicki's door that day, pretending to need gas, just to make sure that she was home alone and everything was going to go well, which is what Gary said. The incident had concerned Vicki just enough

that she innocently called her husband at work and told him about it. Later that day, William Phelps returned back to the Barton home with an accomplice intending to fulfill the plan of just scaring Vicki and burglarizing the house. But that accomplice had sexually assaulted Vicki and then killed her during the attack.

This is all according to Gary. When Jim Barton came home, he was expecting his wife to tell him about the robbery, but instead he found her murdered. He called 911 to report the crime only to incriminate himself on the call after being stunned about the situation and maybe mumbling Phelps name. William Phelps went on to take his own, likely after, you know, because of what happened. And Jim Barron actually moved into Springboro city limits shortly after the murder. But ironically, he was passed over for the promotion of Chiefs of Police three times. Wow.

Jim Barron was offered a plea bargain if he would identify William Phelps accomplice, but he didn't take it. He's like, I don't know who the accomplice is because I didn't have any part in this. But the gym, oh, so he's still denying it. No, he's like, I will not take your plea bargain. I am innocent. And he actually ended up being convicted of complicity

to commit manslaughter and was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison. Where he is today. Well, so this was a while ago, right? So this obviously feels very open and shut. Like if they really found the motive and Gary knew so much about the crime, it seems to make sense. Gary can't come forward and be like, oh, she was bitten.

Oh, and he stopped for gas earlier. Like obviously William Phelps had something to do with the crime or Gary or someone tied to that. But I have some news. After 11 years in prison, Jim Barton's conviction was overturned. And I mean, if you think about it, neither him nor William Phelps committed the actual crime, yet that is what he was put away on and this mystery and I guess it's true. Did it is still in the wind. No one knows who he is or what like the biggest part of the like this case is missing still. So Jim is basically granted a new trial for his possible role in the murder of his wife.

The state basically admitting that they honestly probably didn't have enough to prove he was directly involved in the first place. If he's granted a brand new trial. And Jim was actually living in springboro, like in his springboro home after posting $350,000 bond to wait for his new trial. Oh, the crowd. But during this time he actually ends up entering an Alfred plea. And do you know what an Alfred plea is?

No idea. So an Alfred plea is a plea agreement that he can enter that allows him to maintain his innocence while recognizing that there is enough evidence to convict him. So you have a normal plea where you enter and you plead guilty and you say, yes, I did it. Now give me my deal for entering a guilty plea. But an Alfred plea means that someone gets up and says, I'm still claiming I'm innocent,

but I don't think I'm gonna have a chance to win, so I'm going to take a plea deal. So basically, as a way for someone to say, I'm innocent, but I'm not gonna go to trial, I'm just gonna take a deal. Is it just better for his record or... Most of the time. I mean, I get it, I'm just wondering,

is it better for the record as well? No, no, no. I think it's just for people who are like, no, I absolutely... Almost like an ego thing at that point. Yes, yes, like I absolutely refuse to say that I did something I didn't do, so they take an alpha or plea. And it comes out later, like during this whole time, that Jim wouldn't have had to actually live in city limits to people's chief.

No way. Yeah, so it really was a rumor. Wouldn't have had to actually live in city limits to be opposed to you. No way. Yeah, so it really was a rumor. Like people, the media were saying this was true, but then they went back and looked and legally it wasn't true. But you think he would have known that if he was running? Right. So like, so I think he could have ran for it,

but it would have probably been better if he did live in the city, so his chances might have been better if he did live in the city. So his chances might have been better. People are more likely to elect someone who lives in city limits, but it wasn't legally required. He still could have legally ran. So really, the only motive that the state had found that even made sense of this case was not even solid.

It wasn't even really true. So is it possible that William Phelps and an accomplice had attacked Vicki, maybe even attending, like, intending only burglary, but actually ended up killing her? And then William told his brother, Gary, about the crime describing the bites and then threw Jim into the mix to make himself look better. But like, oh, we were doing this because we were hired to, not because we wanted to. I mean, I think you had something to do with it just because of the phone call. I mean, you can't.

He said, foul. What do you, how do you, how do you prove that? Like, how do you get around that? I don't know. I guess we will never know. That's insane. It is reported, though, that Vicki Barton's family is more on board that Jim had nothing to do with it than that he did.

Interesting. So her own family doesn it than that he did. Interesting. So her own family doesn't believe that he was involved. And I'm obviously not going to speak on it because the state did accept his Alfred plea. So he legally is recorded to have having a part. That's what the book says. So that's what I'm gonna go with. But what really happened to Vicki?

I don't think we have enough physical evidence to know for sure. But what I do know is that once again, someone was taken unjustly from this world. We will remember Vicki for her legacy of helping those in her life for being passionate and kind. And this is the case of Vicki Barton. That's insane. It's like solved, but I mean, it's not. I mean, I feel like it's hard when someone overturn know, someone overturns a case because then you're like, you're so sure, right?

When I was researching, I was so sure. And then when I found out I was overturned and I heard all of this other evidence and the possibility the justice system said, we didn't have enough to put away. But then he entered a plea. So then he did get convicted. You know what I mean?

It's just hard. Dude, he was on the call and he said, felt, I know, I know. But did he say, felt, so did he say for help? I mean, the expert says he said, felt, it's hard because you know how you can convince yourself to hear different words. Right.

So like if I listen to it again and go, Oh, he said, help, I probably hear help. Yes. They say, felt, but here felt. So it's just so hard. I, these cases, I mean, ultimately this is about Vicki, which is the most important part, but these cases are so frustrating

because you want to be for sure in something which I think before anyone gets ever put away, it should be 100% no doubt, but it's just so confusing. Yeah, oh, it's horrible. All right, you guys, so that is our case for this week. We are looking forward to see you guys next week. It should be December, I think.

I think so. So we will be in Christmas time. Should we decorate our set for Christmas? Maybe we should. All right, you guys, we'll see you next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.

Goodbye.